


waking up slow

by orphan_account



Category: Bon Appétit Test Kitchen (Web Series), Chef RPF
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Minnesota, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Touching, author knows nothing about duluth, author knows nothing about ice fishing, but sir those are my emotional support brad leone patented pet names, they stand way too close, you're in love with claire i'm in love with claire brad's in love with claire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:55:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22576675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: In which Brad catches fish, Claire bakes bread, and they both say things that should have been said a long time ago.
Relationships: Brad Leone/Claire Saffitz
Comments: 27
Kudos: 123





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i told myself i would only write one, but i am obviously very good at lying. 
> 
> please remember what the f in rpf stands for, and don't be uncool, bros<3

Claire sat on a plane and tried to decide how she could make this whole thing somebody else’s fault. 

A fairly easy project. Rapo seemed like the obvious contender—the man knew what kind of content generated views—but if that failed, she could always throw Hunzi in the mix, with his selective editing and his clever asides. 

And of course there was always Brad. This had been his suggestion in the first place, she thought; one she’d had a hard (impossible) time vetoing when she saw how excited he was. When he’d turned the full force of that blinding grin upon her, and called her something fond, and let his hand linger too long when he high-fived her. 

Brad, former test kitchen manager, host of  _ It’s Alive.  _ Brad, who was sitting next to her, humming something wordless under his breath and generating the kind of warmth that was making it very difficult for Claire not to lean into. 

“Minnesota,” said Brad, drumming a rhythm on his thighs. He was sitting in the aisle seat, and he still looked absurdly enormous in this little plane, and Claire would be lying if she said she didn’t appreciate the bulk of him there, between her and the rest of the passengers. She didn’t like flying, but she felt safe next to him. This annoyed her. “Minne _ sota,  _ Claire.”

Claire was hyper-conscious of each place they touched: the line of their thighs, the brush of their arms. She was used to Brad being close—he had almost no concept of personal space, at least not around her—but not for such extended, unbroken lengths of time. 

She glanced up at him. He was looking at her, blue eyes steady and avid. 

“Minnesota is cold,” Claire said. 

There was petulance in her voice, and she knew it. Brad knew it too: the look he tilted down at her was wry, and fond enough that it made something deep in her chest warm. 

“Aw, now, Half-Sour.” And there he was, touching her like he didn’t even think of it, nudging her gently with his elbow. Funny how Brad, usually such a scattered, unfocused guy, could look at her with enough singular attention to bring heat to her face. “I know you ain’t afraid of a little cold.”

Claire just shrugged. No, she wasn’t afraid of it. She didn’t like it either, though. 

Mostly she just didn’t like that she’d agreed to do this. 

This: a week in Minnesota with Brad, going fishing and baking bread, spending a solid seven days of time together on camera. It was hard enough to hide everything she felt during shoots that were only a couple hours long. 

This was going to be nearly impossible. 

“Well, don’t worry, Claire,” Brad said. He shifted a little in his seat; spread his long legs out so they took up room in the empty aisle instead of crowding her. “I’ll keep ya nice and warm. Getcha a big thick ol’ coat and a pair of earmuffs, yeah?” He laughed. Loud and so very Brad, and if she’d been with anyone but him, she might’ve been embarrassed. She wasn’t. “Wrap you up in enough layers that you’ll be sweating, even on the ice.”

“I’m holding you to that,” she said mildly. She was smiling too brightly for her tone to be anything but mild; here was Brad, taking care of her like he always did. 

He took care of everyone. That’s what had made him such a good test kitchen manager—because surely it hadn’t been his organizational skills. That’s what made him such a good friend. 

That’s why this trip was going to be hell. 

“Deal,” said Brad, even though it wasn’t, and they hadn’t made one, and grinned at her until she grinned back. 

  
  
  


The hotel was nondescript and clean, and Claire had never been so grateful for synthetic heating in her entire life. 

Brad slung an arm around her shoulders as they stepped into the lobby, hitching her close, and she went, letting herself lean against him. Easy as anything. “You survived, Claire!”

It had been snowing outside. There was some stuck in his beard, a few flakes fast-melting on the fabric of his beanie. A little in his lashes. His eyes were impossibly blue against the wind-blushed pinkness of his cheeks. 

“Barely,” she muttered, shivering at the drastic temperature change as they walked toward the center of the lobby dragging their luggage behind them. 

Brad was the only person she knew who was always, unfailingly smiling in the face of her pessimism. She should have been annoyed by all that joy, by all that unrealistic excitement, but she just wasn’t. It felt natural when it was him. Sometimes, Brad grinning at her was the only thing that saved her day. 

“Buck up, bub,” Brad said. That arm around her shoulders tightened for half a second, pulled her close enough that she could have turned in his hold, pressed her face to his chest; he let go when they reached the circle of chairs in the center of the lobby. “You wait here with our stuff, and I’ll get us checked in, and we’ll get some food in you and you’ll be right as rain. Sound good?”

“Sounds great, Brad,” said Claire, and meant it. 

She watched the broad line of his back and shoulders as he waited in line to check in; watched him smile and laugh and flirt his way through getting their room keys, and watched every person who came in contact with him fall a little bit in love. 

Poor, innocent bystanders. She understood their plight quite well. 

“Keys!” called Brad from halfway across the lobby, and Claire covered her face with her hands as she laughed. 

  
  
  


They ate in the hotel restaurant, because it was late and Claire was sleepy, and neither of them thought it made sense to pay a car to take them somewhere when there was food in the same building. 

Claire slid into the little corner booth they were led to first, and Brad folded himself in after her, all long legs and wide shoulders and a plainly happy smile. 

The food was good, and the wine was drinkable, and Claire felt herself growing pleasantly warm and full as the evening wore on. She ate and listened to Brad talk, and for a few minutes she forgot to be worried about how this would go. 

“Hooboy, Claire,” he sighed as they finished, stretching an arm out along the back of the booth. “I’m beat.”

She hummed an answer, head tilted back against the cushioned seat. They’d drifted closer over the course of their meal, partly leaning together in order to be heard above the bubble of the restaurant, and partly just because that’s how they were. If Brad was in the room, then Claire wanted to be close to him. 

“Excited for tomorrow?” she asked him, sipping at the last of her wine. She knew the answer. She just liked to see him enthusiastic. 

“Oh, I’m always excited when fish are involved, Claire, you know that ‘bout me,” he said, and that was true. She did. “You gonna come with? Follow me and ol’ Hunzi out onto the ice?”

It was definitely the wine talking when Claire shrugged, when Claire said, “Sure, I guess.”

Brad’s eyes lit up. And now she just  _ couldn’t  _ say no. 

“Oh boy Claire,” he said. The arm around the back of her seat had slid down a little, and she’d sat back: her neck was resting on his forearm, and neither of them were moving. “You’re gonna have so much fun.”

She laughed, crossing her arms over her chest. It was going to be cold, and she’d just be sitting on the sidelines watching Brad do his charming thing, and yes, she was absolutely going to enjoy herself. “I doubt it,” she said, just to save face.

Brad was shaking his head. “Claire,” he said, knocking his shoulder into hers gently. She liked the way he said her name: like he was happily surprised each time. “Claire. Trust me.”

  
  
  


*

  
  
  


Brad was supposed to be paying attention to the nice old man teaching him how to ice fish for walleye, but he couldn’t stop staring at Claire. 

She was sitting on an overturned bucket a couple feet behind the camera crew, her hands between her knees, pale face surrounded by dark hair and the thick maroon wool of her hat. 

She was watching Brad, a distant little smile on her face; laughing as his feet scrambled for purchase on the ice, rolling her eyes fondly at him as he tried his best to pronounce their location. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose were bright pink from the cold, and even though she was bundled in a million layers she was still shivering. 

Brad was fucked. He couldn’t even see the shape of her, smothered as she was in that huge coat and a hat and a scarf and gloves and boots that she’d had to borrow from the crew, and still she was all he wanted to look at. He was on the middle of a gorgeous fuckin’ lake, all snow and the Sawtooth mountains in the distance, the sky as blue as a piece of bottle glass, and she was the only thing catching his eye. 

He wondered if she could tell. Wondered if she knew every joke and every smile was for her. 

“Why don’t you get in there, Hunzi, show ‘em at home what’s what,” said Brad, gesturing down at the perfectly round hole that’d been cut in the ice, their fishing line dangling down into the dark water below. Maybe Claire didn’t know how he felt about her, but Hunzi sure did; he’d complained to Brad a million times about how much footage he had to cut out of any video Brad and Claire were both in, or risk the internet being even more obsessed with them than they already were. 

Brad let himself meet his eyes over Hunzi’s camera as he got a shot of the water. “Doin’ ok, Half-Sour?”

Claire grinned at him. “Freezing my ass off, Brad!” she said cheerfully, giving him a wave, and laughing when the fishermen around Brad waved back at her. 

“You should come over here,” said one of them—Brad thought his name was Eddie, but he couldn’t be sure, since he’d been watching Claire try not to slip and fall when they’d been introduced—speaking directly to Claire. “We could teach you anything you wanna know.”

“Oh, I don’t know…” she trailed off as Hunzi swung the camera around to capture her face, mock-scowling at him. “This isn’t my show.”

“That ain’t ever stopped you before, Claire,” Brad said. 

She glared at him. He lifted his hands, palms up:  _ I’m right.  _

“Fine,” she huffed, standing gingerly. Her cheeks had gone pinker than they already were from the attention. Brad couldn’t decide if he was happy she was coming over here, or sorry that she’d been pulled into all this. He moved to give her a hand— 

Eddie reached her first. He offered her his elbow—stupidly gallant for a man in rubber overalls, Brad thought, although really  _ he _ was one to talk—and Claire took it with one of those sweet smiles. One of those smiles that could get anybody in the entire world to do anything for her, lickety-split. 

“Alright,” she said, shuffling up to Brad in those too-big boots. She was still holding onto Eddie’s arm, and Brad felt something go tight and coiled in his throat at the sight of that. At the sight of her accepting help from somebody that wasn’t him. “What am I looking at?”

Eddie answered, but Claire had tilted her face up towards Brad after she asked the question. Brad made a face like he had no idea, just to see her grin. 

Hunzi was chuckling maniacally on the other side of the camera. Brad ignored him, and hoped his ears weren’t turning red. 

“You ever been fishing, Claire?” Brad asked. 

“Sure,” said Claire. She let go of Eddie’s arm to peer down into the hole. Brad hated the way all of him relaxed at the sight of that. She wasn’t his to hold onto. She wasn’t anybody’s. He was an idiot if he was getting jealous over something as little as this. “Couple of times. I’m not very good.”

“Well you’ve come to the right show to learn,” Brad said. He scooted a couple of the folding chairs they had around here closer, and she sat in one. He took the other. “That’s what  _ It’s Alive  _ is all about.”

“I thought  _ It’s Alive  _ was about the friends we make along the way,” Claire said slyly, arching an eyebrow at him, and god. Out here under this flat-bright sky, her smile wide and unreserved, it took every bit of self-control Brad possessed not to lean over and kiss her. 

“That’s crazy-talk, Saffitz,” Brad scoffed. “You and I are already friends.”   
  


  
  


Eddie gave Claire his number as the BA team was packing into the van for the ride back to the hotel. 

Brad couldn’t hear what they said to each other. The wind was loud out here, and in any case they were speaking too low. Claire was smiling, though. 

Brad looked away. 

She climbed into the van a few minutes later, letting out a long, loud sigh as she splayed backwards into her seat. “Brad,” she said, rolling her head to the side and looking up at him with big lash-fringed eyes. Her lips were wind-chapped. “This better be the best fish I’ve ever put into my mouth. I can’t think of anything that’s worth all that.”

He felt himself smiling down at her. “Just you wait,” he said. She was shivering a little, so he leaned forward and turned the heat up a bit, tilting the vents in her direction. “It’s gonna change your life, Claire.”

She raised an eyebrow at him, pulling her toboggan off and letting her hair tumble down. Dark and wild and tangled from the wind. “Are you the one cooking it?”

He nodded. “That’s tomorrow’s video, Saffitz, don’t get ahead of yourself.”

Those eyes widened, that mouth dropped open. “Six hours on the ice and I don’t even get fed until tomorrow?” she slapped his arm—light, fond; he barely felt it through the layers he was wearing—and then dropped back in her seat, boneless again. “You’re evil. I never should’ve agreed to this.”

“That’s me,” he agreed easily. She was pulling her gloves off, and the line of her fingers and palm and wrist was slender, distracting. He’d always loved watching her hands. Forcing his eyes back up to her face, he grinned. “Brad Leone, here to ruin your life.”

The laugh she gave him was a little frayed around the edges. The look she gave him was fond. 

They drove in silence for a while, the static sound of the radio and the crew quietly chattering up front around them. Her face was turned toward the window, watching the scenery blur by; Brad was watching her. 

Brad was always watching her. 

She caught him out of the corner of her eye. 

Maybe he was more tired than he thought he was, because he didn’t look away. Just smiled, a little too muted, a little too soft. 

“What?” she asked. Her voice was low. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear like she always did when she was conscious of eyes on her, but she smiled the way she only ever smiled at him. “Something on my face?”

“Nah,” he said. He was being too honest. “Just lookin’, Claire.”

She blinked at him. Slowly smiled again. “Well, alright,” she said. “That’s fine.”

And turned back to the window. 

  
  
  


*

  
  
  


Duluth suited Brad. 

Most things suited Brad, Claire had discovered. He was in his element wherever he was, whatever he was doing: fishing in Duluth. Crabbing in Alaska. Entering a pie competition in Denver. Making doughnuts with her back home. 

Claire wasn’t like that. It took a lot for her to grow comfortable somewhere, and then even more before she felt normal with people. 

Unless she was with him. Brad had a way of metaphorically grabbing her by the hand and dragging her into situations she wouldn’t otherwise ever take part in, and actually helping her enjoy herself in the process. He was the only person she knew who could nudge her out of her introverted shell without thoroughly draining her social battery. 

“You’re coming with me tomorrow, Claire,” said Brad now, shoulder-to-shoulder with her in the elevator that was taking them up to their floor. He was smiling down at her, he was completely unconscious of personal space—although he would step away, Claire knew, if she asked him to. “Aren’t you?”

Claire had been surprised by how much she’d enjoyed herself today. Watching Brad do his thing was one of her favorite pastimes, of course: he was scattered and he was untraditional, but she couldn’t imagine someone better at his job than he was. She had never understood the people that assumed he was incompetent. 

But above that, Claire had actually had fun out there on the ice. Even if the knowledge she’d gathered today was something she would never actually put to use, she liked learning enough that that didn’t really matter. 

“Is it the same people?” she asked. “Eddie and the crew?”

Something darted over Brad’s face, fast and too dim for her to read. She found herself watching him closely. 

“Sure is,” he said. There wasn’t anything enthusiastic about that response, which was wrong; Brad was always enthusiastic. “That’s good, right?”

The elevator shuddered to a stop, and the doors slid open. For some reason neither of them moved. 

“Well,” said Claire, and she never felt like this with Brad. Like she had to choose her words carefully. “Yes. Right?”

“It’s just that.” A pause. He was smiling, but she didn’t think he looked very happy. “I mean. Eddie sure likes you a lot.”

Claire’s eyebrows rocketed toward her hairline. The doors started to close so she darted out and Brad followed, hands in his pockets. 

“You saw him give me his number,” she said. She didn’t mean to sound flat, but she did. 

Brad’s eyes on her felt heavier than they ever did. A presence against her skin. 

He nodded. “Yeah,” he said. That smile was looking painful. “I did. You gonna call him?”

This. This was why she had thought this trip was such a bad idea. The thrum of her pulse beneath her skin when Brad looked at her too long, the way her heart pounded at the thought that he saw her as more than just a coworker, or even a friend. 

It wasn’t fair of him to do this. To look at her like that: like he didn’t want her to call Eddie. It wasn’t fair, because it wasn’t true. 

“He was nice,” she said finally, quietly, because if she didn’t hold all of this in she didn’t know what she’d say.  _ He was nice, but not as nice as you.  _ “But I told him I probably wouldn’t call.”

The tips of Brad’s ears were red. That, too, was unfair: why would he look like that if he didn’t care? 

“Ok,” said Brad, quiet like he never was. That rictus of a smile faded completely, only to be replaced by something slower. Something softer. She thought of the way he’d gazed at her in the van, like there wasn’t anything he’d rather look at, and something inside of her flashed hot. “Just wonderin’.”

This is what Claire thought:  _ if you asked me to do anything, I would.  _

“Alright,” she said, looking up at him, at the blueness of his eyes, at all this strange shyness on his face, so out of place. Brad was a sensitive guy, sure; she just couldn’t figure out why  _ that _ was the thing making him so cautious. So attentive. “Well.”

“You off to bed?” he asked her. 

“Think so,” she said quietly. It was barely nine, but she was exhausted. Probably more mentally than physically. She hadn’t been lying: Eddie  _ was  _ a nice guy. It’s just that she couldn’t even think of anyone else when Brad was around. “See you tomorrow?”

“Bright ‘n early, Saffitz,” Brad said, warm and low, and stood in the hall until she closed her door. 


	2. Chapter 2

Brad was probably being a bit too enthusiastic, knocking on her door like this at ten am. But he was hungry, and he sort of missed her (sue him), and he physically could not force himself to sit still in his room by himself for another minute. 

So. Here he was. 

The door opened slowly, and then only a sliver. Claire peered out at him. 

Frowning. Hair messy. Glasses still on. Adorable. 

“You’re early,” she said flatly. 

Brad grinned, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He wanted to reach inside and grab her hand and just… well, just that would be enough for him. He was happy, and he wanted to be near her.

Holy shit. No wonder Hunzi was always making fun of him. 

“Sun’s up, Saffitz!” he said, pointing inexplicably toward the ceiling. “Brand new day!”

“Brad,” Claire sighed, a hint of a whine in her voice. That was ok: Brad was good at telling when Claire was really annoyed with him and when she was just putting on a show, and right now there was enough of a smile lurking in the corners of her mouth that he knew he was fine. “I’m tired…”

But she stepped back, opened the door. Let him in. 

Brad perched at the desk in her room, content to sit still now as long as he could talk to her. 

Claire was still half-scowling at him, pulling her glasses off to rub blearily at her eyes. “We don’t even leave ‘til noon,” she mumbled. 

“You’re already dressed,” Brad pointed out. She was: a pair of jeans that was slowly driving him crazy, and a soft-looking light pink sweatshirt, Bon Appetit picked out in thread on the front. There was a pair of thick wool socks on her feet. “So it’s not like you could go back to sleep, anyway.”

That made her throw a small, begrudgingly amused smile at him over her shoulder before she went into the bathroom. He could see a sliver of her face in the mirror as she put in her contacts. “Brad, that was annoyingly logical,” she said.

“You know me, Claire,” he said. She was finger-combing her hair now. He curled his hands closed as he watched, and told himself that he didn’t want to know what it would feel like to do that to her himself. “I’m a logical guy.”

That got an outright laugh. He was too pleased to be offended. 

“Alright,” she said eventually, sighing as she came out to sit on the end of the bed in front of him. Their knees touched. She had washed her face, and it was bright and open and clean, and Brad was all caught up in her, completely. “What’s the plan?”

“Food,” said Brad. 

Claire smiled the smile that could bring him to his knees: pleased with him, and a little reluctant to show it. 

“Well,” she said. “That sounds fine.”

  
  
  


It had snowed outside since yesterday, just an inch or two, but enough that Claire noticed as she peered out the window of the hotel restaurant beside Brad. She groaned at his shoulder, loud and a little dramatic, and he felt himself smiling down at the top of her head without even meaning to. 

“Think you can walk through all that?” Brad asked her. He nudged her with his elbow until she looked at him; he grinned at her until she huffed a laugh. “Or am I gonna have to pick you up and carry you? Wouldn’t want you gettin’ lost out there. The internet would murder me for losing their favorite person.”

“Brad,” said Claire, rolling her eyes, and shoved at him lightly with the palm of her hand. She didn’t pull away immediately. Brad noticed. “I’m not that short.”

He tilted his head, humming consideringly. “I dunno….” Brad stuck his hand out, mimed measuring where the top of her head reached. She only came up to his shoulders on the best of days. “You got those little legs, it’ll be like— _ ooh _ , Claire—like that dog video, you know the one, the tiny dog, it goes  _ puff  _ down into the snow, you can only see the top it it’s ears, just a lil’ guy—”

She was laughing now, smiling so wide, shaking her head as she stared up at him. He didn’t know what he’d said that was so funny, but he didn’t care; seeing her laugh like that, seeing only amusement and calm, un-stressed happiness… that was worth it. 

“Oh my god, Brad,” she said, her words a little breathy as the laughs slowed down. She’d grabbed his arm, was holding on with a small, strong hand; Brad thought that this was going to be the best trip he’d ever been on. 

  
  
  


*

  
  
  


“Alright, ok, what do I hafta say, Hunzi? Gotta introduce us again? You know I don’t remember, bub.”

Claire, wedged in beside Brad in the tiny kitchen they were standing in, leaned her elbow on the counter and her chin in her hand and laughed. 

This was the fourth time he’d tried to do this introduction. This was the fourth time he’d fucked it up. Claire was standing between Brad and an unlit stove, and he was warm and tall at her side, and everything was sort of dimly, horribly awkward because Eddie was over there on Brad’s other side, and she deserved to laugh, goddamn it. 

“Brad,” said Hunzi. If it had been anyone else but Brad, Hunzi might have been annoyed with them. It just seemed universally impossible to be annoyed with Brad. She’d never seen anyone  _ quite  _ manage it. Hunzi looked weary, but there was still a grin on his face. “Bradley—”

“Woah, Hunzano, jeesh, slow down pal you ain’t my ma.”

“—this is all  _ one video.  _ Just tell everyone where you are.”

“Should I do it?” Claire asked. She looked at Brad, head tilted up from where she was slumped down on the counter. “I feel like I should do it.”

“Claire should do it,” Brad said, and his hand skimmed hers over the counter, light enough that she would’ve thought it accidental if he hadn’t smiled like that. 

“ _ Somebody, _ ” Hunzi pleaded, covering his eyes with one hand. “Just fucking do it.”

“Hey guys!” Claire said, straightening up. A chorus of laughs rang out around her. This video was going to be a disaster. “Today on  _ It’s Alive  _ we’re here with Eddie Smyth, a fisherman in Duluth, and we’re gonna learn how to cook up this walleye we caught yesterday. Eddie—” she leaned around Brad, caught Eddie’s eye, smiled as politely as she could. “Thanks for having us.”

“Damn, Claire,” said Brad. He had leaned back a little to let her speak to Eddie, but he moved forward again the moment she was done, and his hand on the counter was still very close to hers. “You should run this show, too.”

“What about you?” she asked. Arms crossed, facing him, barely any distance between them. She knew how this must look on film—she’d seen sourdough doughnuts, she’d seen the way she gazed up at him—but it was too late. He’d caught her eyes, and she was pinned. “What’ll you do?”

They always stood close when they were next to each other—but this was something different. His foot was touching hers beneath the counter, out of sight and secret. And she wasn’t pulling back. 

“I’ll be your assistant,” said Brad. “It’s what I do anyway.” 

She bit her lip to keep her smile from exploding to unmanageable widths. Brad’s eyes flickered down, fast, too fast for her to tell where exactly he’d been looking— 

“Guys,” said Hunzi, with the air of someone who had given up most of their will. “Please stop looking at each other like that.”

Her whole face burned hot. She turned away fast. 

“Vinny never disrespected me like this,” Brad said, obviously trying to save face, but the edges of his voice were strangled. He’d moved his hand. He’d leaned away from her a little. 

“Vinny was a stronger man than I am,” said Hunzi. The crew around him chuckled: Claire really didn’t see what was funny about any of this. 

Brad shook Eddie’s hand enthusiastically as the crew packed up and prepared to leave, giving him a smile that, from where Claire stood, looked perfectly genuine. 

That was Brad though, wasn’t it? One-hundred-percent genuine, no matter what he was doing or who he was talking to. Kind to his core. 

She thought about last night. The way he’d looked at her in the hallway, lights dim around them, more subdued than she’d ever seen him. 

She thought about today. All of him warm and near, ready with a joke or a smile whenever he thought she might need one. 

Usually it was possible to tamp down this heart-pounding thing she felt for him when they were in the test kitchen; never easy, but possible to smother it to a manageable simmer. To forget about it for stretches of time— 

Until he brought her a gift from one of his travels. Until he saved her from herself with enthusiastic praise, or a cut-up kitchen appliance, or the kind of well-meant constructive criticism that was actually useful. She slipped up sometimes; forgot that she wasn’t allowed to love him as much as she did. 

But this trip was proving so much more difficult than it had been back home. Here in Duluth, just them and the camera crew. Nobody else for Brad to spread any of those sunshine-smiles to, and nobody else for Claire to lean on. 

There must have been something on her face when he looked at her: he stepped in close as they walked back to the van, lowered his voice as much as Brad ever could. “Alright, Half-Sour? You’re lookin’ a little down.”

This, too, made it all so difficult. The ease with which he could read her, and know what she needed, and provide it immediately and without question. The hand at her elbow as they navigated the ice-slick sidewalk, as they climbed up the tall step into the van. 

“Yeah, Brad, I’m alright.” 

He had a little frown between his eyebrows. Just a sliver of one. Didn’t believe her, clearly; because it wasn’t strictly true. 

But, “Ok,” he said, and closed the van door as soon as he got all of his tall self inside. “Just wanna make sure everything’s happy up in there,” he said, pointing at her forehead. 

She was lucky to know him. That’s what she told herself. Lucky to even have him as a friend. 

It wasn’t fair to expect more of him. 

“It just… felt a little awkward in there,” she said. There. That wasn’t completely a lie. “You know, with Eddie, and saying no…”

He didn’t believe her. She could tell. 

He shrugged anyway. “Ah, well, we’re done with him now, Claire,” he said. “Don’t gotta worry anymore.”

She nodded, something a little sour in the back of her throat. 

Sometimes she felt bad for relying on him as much as she did. Like she was taking advantage of him, taking advantage of this friendship that’d been built up over years of synchronized working side-by-side. But the moment she stopped asking for it, he gave it to her anyway. Like it was just instinctive.

“It’s bread time tomorrow, Claire!” he said now. Cheering her up, like he always did. He was leaning across the space between their seats, one knee touching hers. “You love bread!”

She laughed. She did love bread. “You coming with me? I had to go ice fishing, I think you should have to bake lefse.”

The van was moving slow, trudging through snow with caution. It rocked a little as it traversed the first stretch of interstate leading back to their hotel, and Claire tried not to let on how that startled her. 

“I’m obviously baking bread with you, Claire,” he said. “What else would I do, just sit in the hotel  _ alone,  _ god, no, no way.”

“You don’t want a break?” she asked. Needling him. It was easier to throw up this shield of banter between them than to look at him with everything she felt plain to see in her eyes. “A day off?”

  
There was this: the way he leaned in close to her while they talked, close enough that his arm was resting right next to hers, close enough that if she’d only breach those last few inches, she could kiss him. 

There was this: the way his eyes got so fucking blue when he smiled. 

“Rather hang out with you,” he said. Pink high up on his cheeks, but whether that was from the truth of that statement or simply the bitter wind outside, Claire didn’t know. It drove her crazy when she didn’t know things. 

“Oh,” said Claire, her voice small between them. 

The teasing had gone out of her as quickly as it had come, and this was dangerous territory to be in. This was a place where truth could be spilled. 

Those eyes scanned her face with all the perception nobody but Claire ever gave him credit for. Maybe he saw something again; maybe he’d decided he wasn’t ready to say what he looked like he wanted to say. 

He took the words on the tip of his tongue and turned them into a smile. Close and quiet. 

Brad receded a little, drifted back over to his side of the van, and that let Claire breath easier. She hated that it did. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's easy to write from brad's pov because i too am in love with claire saffitz


	3. Chapter 3

The bakery where Claire and Brad went the next afternoon was just a few minutes from the hotel, right on the main drag of the town they were staying in. Claire was grateful for this. Less time spent outside overall. 

“I don’t get you, Saffitz,” Brad said as they piled into the bakery, one hand hovering over the small of her back almost unconsciously. The warmth of his palm seeped through her clothing and against her skin; she didn’t know how to tell him that  _ that  _ was the thing making her shiver. “You grew up in St. Louis. Ain’t it cold there?”

“Oh, sure,” she said, stepping over the threshold. She smiled at him over her shoulder. “I hated it then, too.”

His laugh was loud and warm. Swept through her and warmed her right up. 

The smell of the bakery hit her before she’d even turned back around to look; the comforting scent of yeast, something a little like caramelized sugar, freshly baked bread and pastries and a hundred other things that she could see lined up in the case, a neat and well-organized assemblage that made both the pastry chef and the perfectionist inside Claire swoon. 

“Brad,” she breathed, stepping forward, bending to look into the case. “I love being on your show.”

“Love having you,” Brad said, warmth in his voice, but it didn’t really register. Someone was stepping out from the back room, her smile welcoming and her apron on, and Claire could feel her brain lining up a list of questions she was going to ask, a list of techniques she was so excited to learn. 

“You must be Harriet,” Claire said, straightening with a smile and stretching her hand over the counter to shake. “I’m Claire Saffitz. That’s Brad Leone, the host of this show, and this is Matt Hunziker and Kevin Dynia, our crew.”   
  


Harriet, who was roughly Claire’s height and roughly Claire’s mother’s age, shook her hand warmly. “It’s so nice to meet everyone,” she said, and included every person in the room in her grin. “Welcome, welcome. Thank you for coming.”

Huniz and Kev were already filming, but Brad stepped forward for his own handshake, grin already wide and blazing. Claire smiled as she watched him charm Harriet in seconds flat; smiled wider as she remembered him telling her he was good with old ladies like it was a secret. Like she would be surprised. Like he wasn’t just good with everyone. 

Harriet led them all back around to the kitchen portion of her bakery, and Claire felt her breath catch at the gleaming appliances, at the length of stainless steel counters, at the loaves of bread cooling on a rigged-up shelf of wire racks.

“Ooh, Brad,” she said, speaking before she could think, examining the places where the racks were welded together. “Do you think you could make me something like this?”

It took him a second too long to answer. She glanced back at him, and her eyes caught against his and held. 

He was smiling at her, melting and fond, and indulgent enough that it made her cheeks heat. 

“Sure, Claire,” he said, and joined her by the rack, running one big hand over the frame. “I prob’ly could.” 

“My husband made that for me,” Harriet said. She was watching the two of them with eyes that were shrewder than Claire would have guessed. “I tell him to build plenty of things for me. Gets him out of the way.”

There was no way Claire wasn’t blushing right now, if the surface temperature of her face was anything to go by. When she glanced at Brad he was scratching the back of his neck a little sheepishly, eyes darting to her and then away again, and Claire’s stomach performed one long, slow flip. 

“Claire here knows a little something ‘bout that,” Brad said. Glanced again at her, let it sit this time, looked away. “That’s my main job back home in the test kitchen.”

“Well you don’t seem to mind,” Claire said, a little hasty, a little embarrassed. She did tend to boss him around, didn’t she? Tell him what to do. He always did it, though, was the thing. Every time. 

“No, Claire,” said Brad, and this time he didn’t play coy, he didn’t look away. His eyes were blisteringly blue. “I don’t mind at all.”

  
  
  


Harriet made the most beautiful lefse—a type of traditional Norwegian flatbread—that Claire had ever seen. 

Claire was absolutely having the time of her life. 

“Oh, that’s lovely, Claire,” said Harriet, peering over Claire’s shoulder as she flipped her latest batch of Lefse in the griddle. Claire straightened a little under the praise. They  _ did  _ look good: an even color, those tell-tale brown blisters that Claire had been hoping for, unburned and unbroken. “Have you done this before?”

“No, never,” Claire said, inhaling the starchy, delicious scent. “This is my first time.”

“Claire’s pretty much good at everything,” Brad said, from his place at the griddle on Claire’s other side. His lefse had gotten a bit dark around the edges; probably cooking too hot. Claire itched to reach over and correct him, grab his wrist and show him a smoother way to complete the movement—but that would be… well, it just wasn’t her place. “Especially pastry-related stuff. She’s a friggin’ dough god.”

“Brad, oh my god.” She laughed, hoped the camera wasn’t picking up the besotted way she was probably staring up at him. She nudged him with her elbow, because it was  _ his  _ fault that she’d been a blushing mess the whole time they were here. 

  
“What?” He was grinning. “Remember pizzelle? Remember sour _ dough _ nuts? All you, bub.”

She was shaking her head, but she was pleased. And she had a feeling everybody knew it.

“I think you two work together well,” said Harriet mildly. Claire started, just a little; she’d almost forgotten that Harriet was here. She’d almost forgotten that  _ anyone  _ was here. “You’ve got an understanding in the kitchen. Your own language, almost.”

There was a brief pause. Hunzi was nodding aggressively on the other side of the camera, which Claire thought prudent to ignore. 

“Aw, Harriet, that’s just me,” Brad said, filling up the silence that had fallen between them all with a laugh that didn’t quite ring true. “I got the vocabulary of a three year old, can’t help it.”

“You have a fine vocabulary, you just can’t pronounce anything,” Claire said, and the awkwardness was taken care of. Cleared up with a friendly jibe, just like always. 

She couldn’t help but notice it for the rest of the time they spent in the kitchen, though. The way she and Brad just knew how to navigate around each other, knew when to take which step, knew what the other meant before a sentence was even fully out of their mouth. 

It was because she loved him. That’s why she could read him cover to cover so easily. 

So what did it mean that Brad could read her just as well?

  
  
  


*

  
  
  


Hunzi and Kev decided to go back to the hotel when they were done, but Claire had been eyeballing the bookstore across the street all day, so Brad opted loudly to stay back, knowing she wouldn’t request it if she thought she was putting anybody out. 

She smiled at him when he did, glancing up through dark lashes. 

He was feeling brave today, he decided. 

Brave, but not stupid. 

He offered his arm to her as they crossed the street, and she laughed, and she threaded hers through his, leaning into him easily. 

His heart thrummed, plaintive and one-note. 

Hopeless. He was hopeless. 

The bell above the door tinkled as they stepped inside, but otherwise the room was hushed. 

“I know you don’t care about bookstores, Brad,” Claire murmured, looking up at him. Her hand lingered on his arm, and even just that, even just that little touch—he felt himself drifting towards her, total and inevitable. There was snow in her eyelashes. He could kiss her now, and it would be just as easy as taking her hand—but something still held him back. 

“Well, you know,” he said. 

She was still looking. Steady and clear and close, the shape of her lips gentle. She wasn’t letting him off the hook. 

Brave. He was being brave. 

“I told you, Claire,” he murmured. He let the truth show itself in his voice, in his eyes. “I’d rather be with you than sittin’ somewhere alone. I’m happy just to tag along.”

Something in the air in here: all muted colors and the musty-dark scent of pages, a muffled silence that Brad felt the two of them sinking into. She was still holding onto him, and he didn’t want her to ever let go. 

“I’d rather you be here, too,” she said quietly. “I mean it.”

He believed her. 

Brad wasn’t lying. He was content to wander after her as she browsed, taking her coat when she got warm, taking the books she chose when her arms got too full. He loved Claire all the time, but he thought he loved her best like this: effortlessly content, singularly devoted to what she was doing. Somehow he was privileged enough to be let into this gentle, private world of hers, into these moments that he knew she didn’t share with anyone else, and that out of everything was the thing he was most grateful for. 

Even if he never got anything else, at least he had this. He had this version of Claire. He had the press of her gaze on his skin, he had the rose-gold image of her smiles in his mind. He had the way she leaned against him when she stopped thinking about it. He had a portion of her, and he could force himself to be content with that. 

They checked out, and Brad slipped Claire’s coat over her shoulders, and didn’t let himself brush her hair away from her face. He took her bag in his right hand. “Wanna walk back?” he asked as they stepped outside. It was early evening, and the sky still clung to a little of its light. He held up his left arm, heart beating fast, and smiled at her. “I’ll keep ya warm.”

She looked slightly dubious. He tried not to feel too disappointed. 

“I promised, remember?” he said. 

Her face softened. “Yeah,” she murmured, and stepped into his hold. 

God, he hoped she couldn’t hear the beat of his heart in his chest, right there at ear-level. She hoped she couldn’t feel the pound of his pulse through his veins. 

Brad adjusted his arm a little, and felt Claire curl her own hand in the back of his coat. She fit perfectly under his arm; shoulders slotting up against him, her head right at the level of his shoulder if she felt so inclined to rest it there.

She felt so good there. Small and soft and whole. 

“I liked today,” Claire said quietly. He had to tilt his head down a bit to hear her over the sounds of their feet crunching on the snow. “All of it.”

“Me too, Half-Sour,” Brad said honestly. It had started to snow again, and there was a little bit of wind, and he welcomed her wholeheartedly when she burrowed closer to him. “Me too.”

  
  
  


She was shivering by the time they got back. He would have thought she’d want to go upstairs to her room and change, but here they were in the lobby, and she was still nestled up against him, and neither of them were moving, and Brad was going to have a heart attack. 

He looked down at her. Her face was red, and she was biting her lip, and she wasn’t looking at him. 

Brave. 

“You know,” he said, still speaking softly for some reason, “there’s a fireplace in the coffee shop on the second floor. You wanna get changed and meet me back down there? Warm up?”

Something in her eyes, grateful and fleeting. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, ok.”

He let her go. It was tellingly difficult to do. 

  
  
  


*

  
  
  


Brad was sitting on one of the big fluffy couches in the coffee shop by the time Claire was finished changing into her warmest sweatshirt and leggings, and he waved her over with an enthusiastic, long-armed gesture. 

She laughed as a couple of heads swiveled to stare at him, waving around like a windmill. She headed toward him. 

“Hey there, Claire,” he said, like he hadn’t just seen her ten minutes ago. He was smiling. Smiling, smiling. He patted the empty cushion next to him and she sat gratefully, sighing as she sank back into fire-warmed upholstery. She’d let him bully her into walking over here because she was a fool who was helpless to resist touching him in any way; she didn’t exactly regret it, but she  _ did  _ recognize that she’d be a lot warmer if that hadn’t happened. “Gotcha a vat of coffee.”

He had. It was sitting there on the side table, steaming gently. 

“Brad,” said Claire, picking it up with both hands and letting her eyes drift closed as warm, delicious caffeine flooded her system, “I would die for you.”

“Oh,” said Brad, “Claire, don’t say that.” He waved his fingers around his head, made a face. “Bad juju.”

Her lips slid up into a grin. “Uh huh…” she said slowly. 

“Seriously.” He picked up his own cup. He was drinking tea. “I’m not kiddin’. Don’t risk it.”

“Ok, Brad,” she said, and she knew her laugh was closer to a giggle than anything, and still she couldn’t stop it. “Whatever you say.”

He was angled toward her, scant inches between them. She wished she could make herself breach those inches. 

“Never heard that before, Claire, not from you,” he said, all teasing grin, all too-fond eyes. “Think I could get it in writing? Slap it on a sticky note and stick it to my forehead so you gotta read it every time ya look at me? Huh?”

She rolled her eyes broadly, head tilted back to look at him. He was holding his teacup with one broad hand, and it looked ridiculously small cradled in the curve of his palm. “This is the only time you ever get to tell me what to do,” she said. “Because I’m tired and I don’t have the mental capacity to fight you.”

“Oh  _ ho, _ ” said Brad, nonsensical. “Here’s what we’re gonna do, then:” He stopped, looking at her expectantly, building up the anticipation. She was beaming at him, like a goddamn idiot. “Just take it fuckin’ easy, Half-Sour, that’s what.”

“Both of us?” she asked. 

She blushed bright after she said it. Hoped that could be explained away by the flames. Hoped he didn’t know how much she wanted him to stay right here next to her. 

But Brad didn’t appear fazed. He set his cup down, taking hers when she offered it and setting it down too. “Both of us,” he confirmed. 

Claire smiled. 

He’d snagged them the couch closest to the fireplace, which Claire appreciated highly; the warmth of the flames was already making the surface of her skin hot to the touch, flushed gently pink with the contrast of the icy wind outside and the fire in here. Claire sighed, low and long, drawn up out of that place deep in her chest that always got tension-tight when the stress of her life caught up to her. 

The angles of her body sank back into the cushions slowly, bit by bit, letting her eyes close once more. She forgot that she had to relax sometimes. Forgot that it wasn’t normal to walk through life with muscles knotted tight, with a headache constantly persisting right between her eyes. 

Claire could feel Brad’s gaze on her. She didn’t open her eyes, and she didn’t point it out, either. 

“That’s it, Claire,” he said quietly, and it was funny—she couldn’t see him, but she knew exactly what his face would be doing. The particular smile he’d be wearing, a little more private than the one he let most people see, infinitely gentler than the one he wore on camera. “Just sit back and relax and don’t go worryin’ about anything.”

The scratch of his sweater against the couch echoed loud as he shifted beside her. She wanted to lean into him. Wanted to press her cheek to his shoulder, curve an arm around his waist. 

Wanted Brad to want her back. 

“You know,” she said quietly, “nothing ever stresses me out as much if I’m doing it with you.”

He was silent for so long that Claire’s heart started to pick up speed, worried that she’d finally said the thing that was too much. He was silent for so long that Claire had to look at him. 

“C’mere,” he said, voice quiet on a rasp, and Claire leaned into him just as he stretched an arm out, connecting with all of the solid warmth of him, wrapped up in it in seconds. Brad sighed above her, slumped down a little further so her head was resting on his shoulder, tipped his own head down to rest softly on the top of hers. 

They didn’t say anything else for a while. This wasn’t a normal thing for two coworkers to do—cuddling on a couch by a fire, so close that Claire could hear his heartbeat in his chest—and they knew it.

Three days left here. 

She closed her eyes and held on. 


	4. Chapter 4

Brad got up early the next morning, already in the van with Hunzi before the sun had even split the night-purple horizon. 

They were headed off to the factory where the fish Eddie and his employees caught was packaged, going to observe the process and emphasize the non-processed, local aspect of all of this—which he and Claire would wrap up tonight with a dinner at a local restaurant that served Eddie’s company’s catch as their special. 

Claire wasn’t with him this morning. It was a ridiculously early shoot—just the way things had to work out, based on Eddie’s schedule and the hours of the restaurant and a million other things Brad hadn’t payed attention to when they’d told him—and Brad knew that almost nothing would get Claire Saffitz willingly out of bed and happy before nine, let alone before the sun had even risen. Plus, she’d seemed oddly dejected after the last time they’d had to meet up with Eddie. More uncomfortable that Brad had expected her to be. 

He wouldn’t have turned her down if she’d wanted to come along this morning, though. Far from it. 

So she was back at the hotel, ostensibly wrapped up snug in her bed to sleep for a couple more hours. And Brad was going to a fish packing place to watch a guy who’d asked her out a few days ago touch dead fish. 

Brad sighed, and told himself that it would be insane to text her. 

  
  
  


It was a good thing Eddie knew what he was doing and liked talking about it, because Brad was paying absolutely no attention to him. 

His phone had buzzed halfway through, and he’d slipped it out of his pocket long enough to check it:  _ Oh my god when you told me you had an early shoot today I had no idea you meant abusively early _

Claire. Brad felt his face light up with a smile as he read her words, his reaction noticeable enough that Eddie shot him a look as his hands did something messy with a knife and a slab of fish. Brad shot a quick text back— _ just be grateful i didnt ask you to come today claire!!! _ —and pocketed his phone again, turning back to the fish in front of him like nothing had happened. 

His heart just wasn’t in it from then on, though. He couldn’t stop thinking about that text. A simple sentence, nothing special—but why had she even noticed he was gone? Had she come looking for him, and found his room empty? It was still only—Brad glanced at the clock above Hunzi’s head—only eight-thirty: had she wanted to see him before he left? 

Brad’s knife slipped, head distracted with  _ Claire, Claire, Claire,  _ and skittered across the cutting board in front of him, narrowly missing his opposite hand. “Oh fuckin’-A,” he said loudly. 

“Careful, pal!” Eddie was looking at him knowingly. “You could lose a finger that way.”

Brad went back to slicing and dicing, and hoped he didn’t look too embarrassed. 

Hunzi was making faces at him over the top of the camera, but Brad was basically immune to Hunzi’s faces at this point. 

  
  
  


By the time they were finished and Brad had washed all the fish smell off his hands, his phone had already gone off a few mores times in his pocket and all he wanted to do was get outta here and go someplace where he could text Claire in peace. 

Hunzi was packing the camera away and Eddie was talking to one of his employees by the sink, so Brad turned his back to them and pulled out his phone. 

_ Aw Brad did you let me sleep in?  _

_ Well it didn’t work, I woke up early to grab breakfast with you before you left but you were already gone :( _

That damn sad face. All Brad could see was the way Claire pouted up at him sometimes, not really that upset but willing to frown a bit ‘til he was nice to her. Brad loved when she did that. When it was his job to swoop in and stand close to her and make her smile again. 

God, this woman. 

_ i’ll buy your dinner tonight to make up for it,  _ he typed, not taking the time to worry about how that sounded. He didn’t care. They’d never been conventional, and if he wanted to buy his friend dinner, he was damn well gonna buy his friend dinner. He wasn’t  _ necessarily  _ flirting with her.  _ turn that frown upside down half-sour!!!!  _

“Is that Claire?” 

Brad jumped a little, turning around to see Eddie standing at his shoulder. 

Eddie grinned a little sheepishly, hands in his pockets. “Sorry pal,” he said, and Brad told himself that it was normal to be annoyed by that phrase, and not simply a product of his lingering weirdness about knowing this guy’d asked Claire out, “don’t mean to snoop. Just.” He paused. Shrugged. “Wondering.”   


Claire had already texted him back. Brad could feel the vibration against his palm. He didn’t look yet, not while this guy was standing there. 

“No problem,” he said, trying to smile with his usual wattage of friendliness. “Yeah, that’s, this is, it was… her. Claire.”

Eddie nodded. Shifted back and forth on the balls of his feet. “You don’t have to answer this,” he said, and oh god, Brad was bad at these kinda conversations, “but are you two… you know. Together?”

Brad’s heart kicked against his chest, sharp and painful. 

“That’s rude of me to ask,” Eddie continued when Brad just stood there, speechless, “but I can’t help but wonder. I didn’t see it that first day ‘cause, no offense, but I wasn’t watching you—but I started paying attention. I see the way you two look at each other.”

Brad’s throat felt dry, his mind unusually blank. 

He’d gotten used to Hunzi and Kev and Dan seeing it—even Vinny, back in the day—and slowly resigned to the rest of his coworkers and their snarky, half-hidden comments—-but nobody so close to being a stranger had ever caught him out. Or been brave enough to say anything about it, at least. 

Was he that pathetic? Was it that obvious? Everything he felt about her, everything he loved about her, all out in the open on his face for anybody to see?

“No,” Brad said finally, and his voice was shredded, and Eddie’s eyebrows were flying up to his hairline. “No, me and Claire aren’t… she don’t feel that way about me.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

A second chance for Brad to be shocked—followed swiftly by that heart-sinking, inevitable sense of despair. 

“That’s nice of you,” he said. He didn’t bother trying to smile at Eddie. “But it’s very one-sided.”

He worried for a second about offending Eddie—he’d given Claire his number after all, and she’d said she wouldn’t call, and if she wasn’t in a relationship with Brad then that meant she just didn’t  _ want  _ to call—but he didn’t seem that bent out of shape. 

Brad didn’t get it. He didn’t understand how somebody could meet Claire Saffitz and not fall entirely, irrevocably in love with her on the spot. 

He’d never come back from this. He knew that. 

“I don’t think so, pal,” said Eddie. He shrugged: palms up, just a small smile. “If she’d ever looked at me even a little bit like the way she looks at you, I’d’ve gotten that date.”

When Eddie walked away, Brad read Claire’s last text.  _ Hurry up and get back here, then.  _

  
  
  


The ride back to the hotel was mostly quiet. Brad was driving, and Hunzi was getting a few shots—just transitional clips that he’d work in between the bigger points of the video—that Brad didn’t really need to be speaking for. 

He was glad. He couldn’t stop thinking about Eddie’s words, about Claire’s texts. About the way she’d been this whole week: a little quieter than usual, her smiles longer, her gazes softer. Touching him gently whenever she had the chance. 

He’d stopped trying to convince himself he wasn’t in love with her years ago. He’d never even entertained the thought that it might also be the other way ‘round. 

“Really picking up out here, isn’t it?” Hunzi said eventually, voice mild from his seat beside Brad, and Brad pulled himself up out of his mind with conscious effort. He’d been looking out the window this whole time, but he hadn’t really been focusing; now that he did, he saw how dense the swirl of falling snow was, how high the drifts at the side of the road had gathered. 

“Damn,” said Brad. Hunzi made a face at him—he’d picked his camera back up, trained it on Brad’s face to get some sort of filmable reaction—so Brad made a face back and said “Jeez! I sure do hope we don’t get  _ snowed in. _ ”

“Great, Brad, thanks so much,” said Hunzi blandly, and Brad grinned at him, but they both subsided quickly as the van slid a little on the ice-slick road. 

Claire was standing in the lobby when Brad and Hunzi got back, cup of coffee in her hands. Her eyes were wide when she met Brad’s and she crossed to him quickly, eyebrows raised. “Kinda nasty out there,” she observed. 

She was standing just a foot in front of him, hands wrapped around that cup, chip tipped up to look him in the eyes. Brad thought about her waking up early this morning just to see him before he left. Brad thought about what Eddie had said:  _ I see the way you two look at each other.  _

Claire bit her lip the longer Brad went without speaking, the longer Brad just stared, and his heart quickened a little at the sight of that. Teeth marks in plush pink skin. 

“Yeah,” he said, trying his best to shake himself out of it. His voice was weak. “Wouldn’t wanna go out walking in that today, Claire.”

“Right,” said Claire slowly, the word drawn out in the middle like stretching taffy. There was a little line of confusion between her eyebrows. “Brad. You ok?”

“Sure am, Claire,” Brad said brightly and falsely. “Never been better.”

“Great,” said Claire, and she still looked confused, but there was a smile spreading in the corners of her mouth, like she just couldn’t help herself. She reached out with one small hand and set it on his arm, right below the cuff of his sleeve on the bare skin of his wrist, casual like she wasn’t even thinking about it. “Well I guess we’d better just stay inside, then.”

Brad could feel himself nodding. He wondered what would happen if he just bent slightly, if he brushed a kiss to the softest part of her cheek and withdrew fast. 

If she’d let him, or if she’d push him away. 

“Anybody ever tell you you’re a genius, Claire?” Brad said, and all of him was focused on that place where her fingers pressed over his veins. 

“You,” said Claire, laughing up at him. “Couple of times.”   
  


  
  


*

  
  
  


The restaurant was close enough that they could have easily walked, if there hadn’t been enough snow on the ground and in the air that they probably would’ve lost one of them along the way. They piled into the van for the five minute drive, Kevin taking it easy on the decline of the hill their hotel was on. 

“Boy, I’m excited about this, Claire,” Brad said, the leg he had stretched out near hers bouncing up and down. He’d lost most of his weird mood that he’d been when he’d come back from shooting this morning, but Claire still thought he seemed a little off. Edgier than he usually was. Eyes on her, right up until she looked at him and his gaze skittered away. “I’m  _ hungry. _ ”

“Yeah,” she said, “me too, but that isn’t unusual.”

Brad collected her purse from its spot at her feet and handed it to her as the van crawled to a stop. “I always know it’s meal time when you start getting grumpy.”

She pouted up at him, but there wasn’t any heart behind it. She knew that was true.

The restaurant was cute and small and largely unoccupied. 

“Because everyone is smarter than us,” Claire heard Hunzi mutter to Kevin as they started setting up, and Claire and Brad took their seats. She grinned at Brad across the little table; his knees bumped into hers, and he left them there. 

They hadn’t received much instruction for this part of the video. “Just eat,” said Hunzi, “and act like you like each other.”

“Basically what you do every day,” Kevin added. 

Brad shrugged across from her, looking big wedged into this little corner table. He was already eating out of the basket of biscuits that’d been set in front of them, even though the cameras weren’t yet rolling, and Claire could feel his foot tapping hers beneath the table, could feel all that warmth rolling off of him in a wave. It was hard not to smile when she was with Brad. 

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Claire said. 

  
  
  


Claire got a text as she was sitting in bed around ten that night, flipping through the channels halfheartedly. She picked her phone up, willing to abandon television for whoever was reaching out. 

It was Brad. Of course.  _ you still up half-sour? _

_ Yeah. Can’t sleep. I think the snow is distracting me.  _

She watched the typing bubbles appear, and then disappear, and then appear again, and she wondered why her heart was beating like this. 

_ want some company? i can’t sleep either _

She didn’t let herself think about it. 

_ Come on over.  _

She slipped a robe on over her pajamas, tying it loosely around her waist, and tried to clean up the worst of a week’s worth of clutter before his knock sounded on her door. 

She padded over on bare feet. Got up on tiptoes to make sure it was really him out there, and then pulled the door open with a smile when it was. 

“Hey there, Half-Sour,” said Brad. 

“Hey yourself.” She looked up at him, her stomach restless with the sight of him in sweatpants and an old, soft-worn t-shirt, his head bare. She’d been doing so well all week, but this might be the moment that she finally snapped. This might be the moment it all became a little too much. 

She shouldn’t invite him in. 

Brad’s smile was meltingly soft around the edges. “You going to bed?” he asked her. He was giving her an out. He must have been able to see the sheen of panic in her eyes. “I can leave.”

“No,” she said, too quickly, too sharp, and stepped back from the door as she pulled it open. “No, I’m not. Um. Wanna come in?”

“Love to,” he said. He didn’t crowd her when she entered, which she appreciated; he shut the door behind him, but he let her lock it.

She smiled at him over her shoulder as she crossed to her bed—god, her heart was beating fast—and climbed back up, stretching her legs out on top of the covers. She jerked her head over to the other side as she picked up the remote, and wordlessly, Brad sat beside her. 

The mattress dipped with his weight, shifting her slightly closer to him. 

“Any preference?” Claire asked, waving the remote aimlessly at the television. “Everything is pretty shitty.”

“Whatever you want, Claire,” Brad said, and she knew he meant that. Not just with this; with everything they did together. Brad was always letting her call the shots, and he was always perfectly happy to do so. “I’m just glad to have some company.”

“Yeah,” she said, and she knew her voice was too quiet, too honest, but there was nothing she could do about it. “Me too.”

She settled on reruns of Cake Boss, which Brad found amusing based on the laugh he let out. She could see him relaxing out of the corner of her eye; slumping down a bit on the pillows behind his head, crossing his ankles, tipping his head back against the headboard. 

It felt nice to have him in here. It felt right. 

So Claire let herself relax, too. 

Relaxing was something she was terrible at—not a secret: she was fairly sure the whole internet had picked up on that particular quirk by now—but it was always so much easier when she had someone close to her to model herself after. In this case it was Brad. 

In most cases it was Brad. 

“So how’ve you enjoyed your trip, Claire?” Brad asked her. She could feel him looking at her, feel his gaze steady and unwavering on the side of her face. She rested her chin on her steepled knees, hands hooked around her shins, and glanced at him sideways. “Glad we all forced you to come?”

“Yes,” she said honestly, and maybe it was the late hour, or the emotional build-up of the week, or just the sight of him in her bed, looking so stunningly unguarded—but the word slipped out of her without a thought. “I am glad.”

He had a way of looking at her. Bold-blue eyes and an unwavering gaze, so much fondness that it shocked her sometimes. 

It made her breath catch now. 

“Claire,” said Brad, quiet on a breath, and  _ oh,  _ she thought.  _ Oh god. This is it.  _

They leaned toward each other, mattress dipping in the middle. 

The tv flickered. The lights went out with a bang. 

She startled at being plunged into darkness, and Brad did too, and they  _ did  _ meet in the middle—only it was a tangle of limbs and the top of her head slamming into the bottom of Brad’s chin, the two of them tumbling into each other in the darkness.

“God fucking  _ dammit, _ ” Brad said, starting on a hiss and ending in a hopeless sort of laugh. 

Claire was already shaking with laughter, half-way beneath him, wrapped up in his arms with no plans to move. She’d just been about to kiss him. They were in a hotel in the middle of Duluth. There was feet of snow outside, and the power was out, and he was holding her and she was exhausted and she didn’t think anything was ever going to go right, and she loved him, she really did, she loved him so fucking much. 

The phone on her bedside table rang. Brad detached himself from her since he was the closest, sitting up a little to answer. Claire watched the broad outline of his shoulders, lit up from the sliver of moonlight pouring in from outside. 

“Hey there,” Brad said, and then hummed a few times in response, nodding, twisting the phone cord around his hand as he listened. “Not until five am,” he said, glancing back at Claire over his shoulder. She could only see the sheen of his eyes. “Refund! Refunds are great, we’ll take one. Thanks, ma’am. Have a nice night.”

He turned back to Claire, still sitting up above her. One of his hands covered hers on the blanket. She turned hers palm up, threading her fingers through his, feeling impossibly brave in this cover of darkness. 

“Their generator kicked on, so the phone lines will work,” he said, speaking low, “but nothing else, at least ‘til five. It’s gonna be a cold one tonight, Half-Sour.”

“Yeah,” she said. She wanted to ask him to come back to bed. She didn’t know how. “You, um… you wanna stay?” 

Brad was still above her. She didn’t know if she wanted to see his expressions, or if she was happier here, not being able to see whatever rejection was probably playing across his features. 

“I mean,” she said, panic picking up the speed of her words, “just ‘cause it’ll be freezing, and it might be nice to sleep in a bed with somebody else, share body heat, but if you don’t want to—sorry, that was weird, I shouldn’t have— 

“Nuh uh,” said Brad, lowering himself back down beside her, pulling the covers up over them even as he spoke, “it wasn’t weird, of course I’ll stay, Claire, ‘s too late for a breakdown, c’mere,” he murmured, and draped an arm over her, heavy and weighted and comforting and  _ warm.  _

Claire let out a long, shaky sigh. She let her fingers curl into the fabric of the shirt over his chest; let herself be pulled close, her head buried in that place between his chin and his shoulder. 

She thought she felt the feather-light press of lips in her hair before she drifted off to sleep, but she could never be sure. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i swear there'll be kissing in the next chapter. i SWEAR.


	5. Chapter 5

Brad opened his eyes and she was pressed against him, a hand curled into his shirt, soft sleepy puffs of air feathering against the base of his neck. 

His heart turned over once, twice, three times. 

He’d never seen anything more beautiful than her. She was still and warm in his arms, her cheeks flushed, her hair everywhere, her mouth soft pink and parted, and he pulled her tighter to himself just on reflex, one broad hand spanning the entirety of that tender dip in her waist. 

Heartbeat wild and racing beneath his skin. 

It was impossible for him to even think of waking her—she was too peaceful, and he didn’t know if he’d ever get to hold her like this again, and he loved her, he loved her, he—and that was fine. They didn’t have anywhere to be until much later in the afternoon. 

Brad let her sleep. 

He didn’t know how long he laid there, Claire nestled against his chest, their breathing synchronized so easily that it made his eyes sting. Last night he’d’ve kissed her if it hadn’t gone dark—he knew that for sure—and he thought she’d known it too; she’d been leaning in, and those eyes had flickered down…

Maybe he should let go of her. Spare her the awkwardness of waking all wrapped up in him like this, of having to tell him that this wasn’t something she wanted. Maybe he should tip her gently onto her own side of the bed, soft enough that she wouldn’t even realize, and put a bit of space between them— 

Claire made a soft sound, like a murmur or a sigh. Moved a little: first burrowing closer, and then stilling as she woke, and realized. 

He was running fingers through her downy-soft hair, and he couldn’t stop. 

She pulled away very slightly, just so she could meet his gaze. Blinked up at him. 

A shaft of sunlight came into the room through the gap in the curtains. Lit on her face, and turned her brown eyes liquid gold. Brad was breathing too fast, and every bit of him was alight inside, warm like a furnace. 

“...sorry,” he murmured. 

Another blink, and then a sliver of confusion between her eyebrows. She hadn’t let go of him. She hadn’t asked him to stop the way his fingertips were stroking the fine hair at her temples. 

“Sorry?” she repeated, her voice sleep-quiet and scratchy. Their legs were tangled beneath the blankets. There wasn’t a bit of them that wasn’t touching, somehow. “Why?”

“I don’t…” his thumb stroked a gentle arc along the top of her cheek, his palm fitted perfectly to her jaw. If he leaned forward another half an inch, she’d be his. He closed his eyes. Breathed. 

Her hand on his chest pressed closer, pulling him in. 

“Claire,” he said, just like he always did, her name in his mouth, his favorite word:  _ Claire, Claire, Claire.  _ “You gotta know I… I’ve been in love with you forever.”

She took in a sharp little breath. He looked up fast—worried he’d hurt her somehow, worried that she she wasn’t ok—and when their eyes met hers were wet around the edges, glistening like they had in the sun, heartbreaking. 

“Shit,” Brad said, acting on instinct and pulling her in until he was embracing her fully, his arms all the way around her and hers around him, his lips to her forehead. She was so small, and he held all of her. “Shit, Claire, I fucked up, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have told you—” 

“Brad,” she said, and her voice shook, “Brad, slow down. I’m not upset.” 

She sounded pretty fucking upset. Brad felt like the biggest asshole in the world. 

“I’m not askin’ you for anything, Claire,” he whispered. “Not askin’ you to settle for a guy like me. I just needed you to know.”

She pulled back, and she looked up at him, and her eyes were damp, sure, but they were luminous. “What’s wrong with a guy like you?” she asked him, fierce. 

This was why he loved her, he thought. Just one of the reasons. 

“You could have anybody in the whole world, Claire,” Brad said softly. Gathered a little bit of the wetness beneath her eyes on the edge of his thumb, and wiped it away. 

She took another breath, but this one was deeper. More measured. Claire making a decision. 

He wanted to close his eyes again, because he knew she’d be so kind about saying no, and he didn’t think he could bear looking that kindness head on. 

“What if I want you?”

Her hair fanned out on the pillow around her in waves, dark and light and wavy, running through his fingers like water over a riverbed. He couldn’t believe that he even knew her, couldn’t believe she’d ever spoken to him, let alone that she’d… she’d… 

“Then I’d be the luckiest son of a bitch that ever lived, Claire,” he breathed. 

Her fingers were warm on the back of his neck, warm when she stretched up and held onto him and pulled him down until he was level with her mouth. He let her move him. He’d let her do anything. 

“I love you,” Claire said, or breathed, maybe, into the air between their lips— _ I love you,  _ she’d said, those big dark eyes, “I love you,” on a sigh, and she tilted her neck up and her mouth met his and the noise he made was from a punched-out place deep in the center of his core. 

Brad kissed her back sweet and slow. Brad kissed her back with a hand at the careful curve of her jaw and one on the dip of her waist, all the fervid heat of her pressed against him, and Brad didn’t think he was very good at being gentle but he so wanted to be gentle with her. 

  
  
  


Later, and they hadn’t gotten up yet, blankets tangled around their legs. 

The power was back on. The room was toasty-warm, but even if it wasn’t, Brad thought they’d get by just fine. All snug under their blankets, hands and waists and mouths and cloud-warm breath. 

Just fine. 

Brad never wanted to leave this hotel room. 

He was still kissing her, lazy and slow: across cheeks and forehead and the corner of an upturned mouth. One at the heel of her palm, right over the place where veins crossed each other like lines on a map, quietly thrumming with the beat of her heart. 

She laughed at that. It turned into a sigh at the end, the kind that was just light enough on the far side to sound like a question. 

He smiled at her, wide and bright, unable to hold it in any longer, and she said his name and pulled him down again. 

  
  
  


*

  
  
  


Claire’s stomach growled. Loudly.

“Oh my god,” said Brad. His lips were tucked up in the secret place behind her left ear, and one big hand spanned the width of her hip bone, and he was hovering above her like he’d been doing all morning, and Claire loved him and Claire was  _ hungry.  _ “Oh my  _ god _ —”

Her face was hot. He was shaking above her, laughing into her skin, touching her like everything she did was perfect instead of awkward and a little embarrassing. 

“ _ Brad, _ ” she said, that breathy whine that only ever came out around him. She was half-giggling and half trying to hide her face in his neck, but there he was, sitting back, gazing down at her so fondly that her breath caught. 

“Don’t make fun of me,” she pouted. 

“Ain’t makin’ fun of you,” he said warmly. He slid his palm up her hip and across her ribcage, thumb stroking a broad line over her stomach. She was quivering to pieces, and had been for hours. “Never gonna make fun of you. You’re perfect, babe.”

_ Babe.  _ That wasn’t a new thing. He’d called her that before, offhand. It was a Brad thing. She’d seen him call the dehydrator babe. 

It lit her up inside. 

“Food time?” she asked. 

“Yeah, Claire.” He dipped back down once more, tucked a kiss first in one corner of her mouth and then the other. “Food time, babe, let’s go.”

  
  
  


Claire got a text from Kevin as she and Brad got ready to leave her room.  _ If you aren’t dead from hypothermia, don’t worry about filming today. We pretty much can’t leave. Relaxation time! Tell Brad?  _

“Oh,” said Claire. She’d… honestly forgotten they had anything to do today. She’d sort of forgotten it wasn’t just her and Brad here in this hotel in the middle of Minnesota. 

“Ok there Half-Sour?” Brad tucked his chin over her shoulder to read her phone, big hands going to her waist, and it was both impractical due to their respective heights and incredibly, inconveniently hot. 

“Yeah,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound as breathless as she felt, resisting the urge to turn around and nestle herself into him. She reached back and took his hand instead, leading him out of the room. “Perfect.”

“Wahoo, Claire!” he said. He pumped a fist in the air, too enthusiastic by half, and Claire’s cheeks hurt from smiling. 

  
  
  


When they got downstairs to the restaurant, hands still held between them, Claire looked up and the first thing she saw was Hunzi and Kevin sitting at a booth in the corner, their eyes the size of dinner plates. 

“Ah, well, here goes nothin’ Claire,” Brad said. They crossed to the booth. 

Kevin’s mouth was hanging open. Kevin was a fairly quiet guy, but Claire didn’t think she’d ever seen him actively speechless; she sort of enjoyed the sight. 

Hunzi, on the other hand— 

“I don’t even know what to say,” Hunzi said, which was clearly a lie. He looked a bit… honestly a bit like he was about to cry. Out of happiness, Claire thought, remembering weary, exhausted demands he would make of them to  _ just please try to touch each other less.  _ “I am  _ ecstatic, _ ” he added. “Look out our children, Kevin, all grown up and in love…”

“It’s a miracle,” said Kevin. 

“I liked Vinny better than I like  _ both  _ of you,” said Claire, but she was smiling too wide for them to take her seriously. 

  
  
  


Their flight was delayed a day. Claire emphatically didn’t mind. 

They booked her hotel room for another night, and she helped Brad move out of his. 

“So how’d ya like Minnesota, Half-Sour?” Brad asked her after they were settled, curled up on her bed again, kissing lazily as they television played on mute in the background. 

Claire let her eyes slip closed. Let him pull her closer. 

“I liked Minnesota,” she said. He kissed her, he kissed. “I am  _ in love  _ with Minnesota,” she added, and Brad laughed, and outside, the snow fell. 

**Author's Note:**

> will this be two chapters? seven? who knows! subscribe to find out and you'll be just as surprised as i am.


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